The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
efforts of the navigators of Holland that the Australian coasts became well explored. From 1616, at intervals, till 1644, they instigated many voyages, the leading ones of which were the two made by Tasman, in the second of which he circumnavigated Australia. “New Holland” was the title long applied to the western part of Australia—sometimes, indeed, to the whole country.
The voyages of the Dutch had not that glamour of romance which so often attaches to those of the Spanish and English. They did not meet natives laden with evidences of the natural wealth of their country, and adorned by barbaric ornaments. On the contrary, the coasts of Australia did not appear prepossessing, while the natives were wretched and squalid. Could they have known of its after-destiny, England might not hold it to-day. When Dampier, sent out by William III. more than fifty years afterwards, re-discovered the west coast of Australia, he had little to record more than the number of sharks on the coast, his astonishment at the kangaroos jumping about on shore, and his disgust for the few natives he met, whom he described as “the most unpleasant-looking and worst-featured of any people” he had ever encountered.
Nearly seventy years elapsed before any other noteworthy discovery was made in regard to Australia. In Captain Cook’s first voyage, in 1768, he explored and partially surveyed the eastern part of its coasts, and discovered the inlet, to which a considerable notoriety afterwards clung, which he termed Botany Bay, on account of the luxuriant vegetation of its shores. Rounding the western side, he proceeded northwards to Torres Straits, near which, on a small island off the mainland, he took possession of the whole country, in the name of his sovereign, George III., christening it New South Wales. It is still called Possession Island. Captain Cook gave so favourable an account of Botany Bay on his return, that it was determined at once to form a colony, in which convict labour should be systematically employed. Accordingly, a fleet of eleven vessels, under Captain Phillip, left Portsmouth on the 13th of May, 1787, and after a tedious voyage, reached Botany Bay the following January.
Captain Phillip found the bay was not a safe anchorage, and in other respects was unsuitable. A few miles to the northward he discovered an inlet, now named Port Jackson—from the name of the seaman who discovered it—and which had been overlooked by Cook. The fleet was immediately removed thither, the convicts landed, and the British flag raised on the banks of Sydney Cove. Of the thousand individuals who formed this first nucleus of a grand colony, more than three-fourths were convicted offenders. For some time they were partially dependent on England for supplies. It had been arranged that they should not, at first, be left without sufficient provisions. The first ship sent out after the colonists had been landed for this purpose was struck by an iceberg in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope, and might not have been saved at all, but for the seamanship of the “gallant, good Riou,” who afterwards lost his life at the battle of Copenhagen. He managed to keep her afloat, and she was at length towed into Table Bay, and a portion of her stores saved. Meantime, the colonists were living “in the constant belief that they should one day perish of hunger.” Governor Phillip set a noble example by putting himself on the same rations as the meanest convict; and when on state occasions he was obliged to invite the officers of the colony to dine with him at the Government House, he used to intimate to the guests that “they must bring their bread along with them.” At last, in June, 1790, some stores arrived; and in the following year a second fleet of vessels came out from England, one ship of the Royal Navy and ten transports; 1,763 convicts had left England on board the latter, of whom nearly 200 died on the voyage, and many more on arrival. The number of free settlers was then, and long afterwards, naturally very small; they did not like to be so intimately and inevitably associated with convicted criminals. In 1810 the total population of Australia was about 10,000. In 1836 it had risen to 77,000, two-fifths of whom were convicts in actual bondage, while of the remainder, a large proportion had at one time been in the same condition. Governor King, one of the earlier officials of the colony, complained that “he could not make farmers out of pickpockets;” and Governor Macquarie later said that “there were only two classes of individuals in New South Wales—those who had been convicted, and those who ought to have been.” Under these discouraging circumstances, coupled with all kinds of other difficulties, the colony made slow headway. Droughts and inundations, famine or scarcity, and hostility on the part of the natives, helped seriously to retard its progress. About the period of Sir Thomas Brisbane’s administration, there was an influx of a better class of colonists, owing to the inauguration of free emigration. In 1841, transportation to New South Wales ceased. Ten years later the discovery of gold by Mr. E. H. Hargreaves (on the 12th of February, 1851) caused the first great “rush” to the colony, which influx has since continued, partly for better reasons than gold-finding—the grand chances offered for stock-raising, agricultural, horticultural, and vinicultural pursuits.
To the north and south of Sydney, the coast is a nearly unbroken range of iron-bound cliffs. But as a vessel approaches the shore, a narrow entrance, between the two “Heads” of Port Jackson, as they are called, discloses itself. It is nowhere greater than a mile in width, and really does not appear so much, on account of the height of the cliffs. On entering the harbour a fine sea-lake appears in view, usually blue and calm, and in one of its charming inlets is situated the city of Sydney. “There is not,” writes Professor Hughes, “a more thoroughly English town on the face of the globe—not even in England itself—than this southern emporium of the commerce of nations. Sydney is entirely wanting in the novel and exotic aspect which belongs to foreign capitals. The emigrant lands there, and hears his own mother tongue spoken on every side; he looks around upon the busy life of its crowded streets, and he gazes on scenes exactly similar to those daily observable in the highways of London, Liverpool, Birmingham, or Manchester. … ‘Were it not,’ says Colonel Mundy, ‘for an occasional orange-tree in full bloom, or fruit in the background of some of the older cottages, or a flock of little green parrots whistling as they alight for a moment on a house-top, one might fancy himself in Brighton or Plymouth.’ ”103 Gay equipages crowd its streets, which are lined with handsome shops; the city abounds in fine public buildings. In the outskirts of the city are flour-mills of all kinds, worked by horse, water, wind, and steam; great distilleries and breweries, soap and candle works, tanneries, and woollen-mills, at the latter of which they turn out an excellent tweed cloth. Ship-building is carried on extensively around Port Jackson. Although now overshadowed by the commercial superiority of Melbourne, it has the preeminence as a port. In fact, Melbourne is not a sea-port at all, as we shall see. Vessels of large burdens can lie alongside the wharves of Sydney, and “Jack,” in the Royal Navy at least, is more likely to stop there for awhile, than ever to see Melbourne. He will find it a cheap place in most respects, for everywhere in New South Wales meat is excessively low-priced; they used formerly to throw it away, after taking off the hides and boiling out the fat, but are wiser now, and send it in tins all over the world. Such fruits as the peach, nectarine, apricot, plum, fig, grape, cherry, and orange are as plentiful as blackberries. The orangeries and orchards of New South Wales are among its sights; and in the neighbourhood of Sydney and round Port Jackson there are beautiful groves of orange-trees, which extend in some places down to the water’s edge. Individual settlers have groves which yield as many as thirty thousand dozen oranges per annum. One may there literally “sit under his own vine and fig-tree.” If a peach-stone is thrown down in almost any part of Australia where there is a little moisture, a tree will spring up, which in a few years will yield handsomely. A well-known botanist used formerly to carry with him, during extensive travels, a small bag of peach-stones to plant in suitable places, and many a wandering settler has blessed him since. Pigs were formerly often fed on peaches, as was done in California, a country much resembling Southern Australia; it is only of late years they have been utilised in both places by drying or otherwise preserving. A basket-load may be obtained in the Sydney markets during the season for a few pence. The summer heat of Sydney is about that of Naples, while its winter corresponds with that of Sicily.
But are there no drawbacks to all this happy state of things? Well, yes; about the worst is a hot blast which sometimes blows from the interior, known popularly in Sydney as a “brick-fielder” or “southerly buster.” It is much like that already described, and neither the most closely-fastened doors nor windows will keep out the fearful dust-storm. “Its effect,” says Professor Hughes, “is particularly destructive of every sense of comfort; the dried and dust-besprinkled skin acquiring for the time some resemblance